Mobile Game Review of "Marsho Madness"

Marsho Madness is actually a "sidegame" made into a mobile game. The original game stars Eets, a cute creature, who needs to complete a series of tasks and get food. It is best described as half Incredible Machine, half Lemmings. Eets likes to eat marshmallows and hates choco chips. Marsho Madness started as a bonus game for the main eets game, known as Eets: Chowdown for the PC. It has since been ported to X360 and released on XLA. Konami decided to make the bonus round into its own game. Is it any good? Well... Not that good.

Marsho Madness has the plot where Eets is defending against a horde of evil marshmallows. The problem is, if you don't play Eets:Chowdown or other games in the series, you don't really "get" the silly plot. That's one point down. The actual game itself is kinda cute, but not that well done. Basically, each "critter" has a lock-on sequence. Smallest have just 2 keypresses... out of four: up / down / left / right. Larger ones can have up to 4 (haven't seen a 5-key critter yet). You have to lock on to each marsho and zap them with the laser before they reach Eets. Different marshos move in different speed and patterns. Small lock-2 (2 buttons) critters just goes at you straight, slowly, while the lock-3 critters have random stops and moves, and lock-4 critters either circle or go straight in, and breaks into multiple lock-2's when zapped. The lock-3 critters that circle are like bombers that drop off more lock-2's. You get the idea.

As you play longer (you get 1 free life for surviving every 3 minutes) your "laser" gets extra power, like being able to "chain" through multiple enemies, and so on. However, you're given no indication of this other then the effects once fired.

Also, the game does not proper take advantage of my LG VX9900's normal aspect screen. In fact, the "life bar" covers the top, making enemies approaching from that side almost invisible.

Somehow this game doesn't have that "play again" factor, as it's more frustrating than challenging, at least in my opinion. The later marshmellows come too fast, esp. when they break into multiple pieces which still must be targeted.

All in all, I can only give this game a 6 / 10. There are better distractions out there.